Exodus 12 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Exodus 12:1-13

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 ‘This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door-frames of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire – with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

12 ‘On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

A. Find Out:    

1. What sort of lamb were they to take? v.3-5
2. What were they to do with some of the blood? v.7
3. With what effect? v.13
4. What were they to do with the rest of it? v.8-10
5. How were they to eat the lamb? v.11
6. What was the Lord going to do? v.12

B. Think:

1. What do you think was the point of eating that evening?
2. In EVERY home throughout the whole of Egypt there would be a dead body. What would it be?
3. Read John 1:29 What does that tell us about Jesus?

C. Comment:

      The Lord gives clear instructions for what is to become known as the Passover, the time when God “passed-over” Egypt and left dead bodies behind Him. In the Jewish homes the dead body was to be a lamb, a young lamb “without defect”. Here is an amazing picture of the lamb that God was to provide as a sacrifice for eternity, His Son Jesus, who was also without defect (Hebrews 4:15). For the Israelites their salvation from the wrath of God would come, first because they were a chosen people (for us see Ephesians 1:4), and second because they responded in faith, believing what God had said through Moses and obeying Him (for us see Romans 3:22)

      The Lord’s judgement against Egypt is significant (v.12), “on all the gods of Egypt”. The Egyptians were worshippers of gods, the creation of human imagination and demon inspiration. They worshipped the sun, the air, the sky, the earth, the water. In the judgement God brought He upset each of these and brought distress through the very things they worshipped. Today, nature worship still has its origin in the same place, and God will judge it! The only object of worship must be the Creator, not the created.

D. Application?

1. Beware New Age worship of the earth.
2. God is distinct from His creation. Worship Him, not His creation!

Passage: Exodus 12:14-20

14 ‘This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day until the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.

17 ‘Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.’

A. Find Out:

1. What are they to do with this day? v.14
2. How long are they to celebrate it? v.15
3. What are they to eat in this time? v.15
4. How are they to begin and end it? v.16
5. Why are they to do this? v.17
6. What is to happen to anyone who eats yeast? v.19

B. Think:

1. Why do you think the Lord is establishing this feast?
2. Why do you think they were unable to use any yeast in their baking?
3. Look up 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 for OUR feast of remembrance.

C. Comment:

      Two particular things of note come out of this passage. First, we observe the PURPOSE of this feast: it is to ensure the future generations remember this event, this day when the Lord delivered Israel out of Egypt. We are prone to forget, prone to take for granted, prone to make ordinary, such events, and we therefore need constant reminding. A feast that would last a whole week would certainly ensure no one forgot it.

      Second, we observe a key feature of this feast: it is eating bread without yeast in. This is mentioned several times in these seven verses, and twice we are told that anyone who does must be cut off from Israel. Some people speak of yeast being a picture of sin, but that isn’t the main emphasis here. Yeast takes time to rise when it is used in baking and the emphasis is therefore that what happened, happened at great speed. When God moves, He often appears to wait a long time before he moves, but when He does move things seem to happen very quickly. For weeks and months this has been dragging on but now suddenly, in twenty-four hours, they will be out, This can only be the Lord, so don’t forget it!

D. Application?

1. Learn to be patient to await God’s moving.
2. When God moves, make sure you are ready!

Passage: Exodus 12:21-30

21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the door-frame. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the door-frame and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

24 ‘Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, “What does this ceremony mean to you?” 27 then tell them, “It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.”’ Then the people bowed down and worshipped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

A. Find Out:

1. Who did Moses pass the word onto first? v.21
2. How were they to paint their door posts? v.22
3. What did he command about leaving here? v.22
4. Who will God stop when He sees the blood? v.23
5. Who were they to tell in the future? v.26,27
6. How did the people respond to all this? v.27

B. Think:

1. When will God stop the angel of judgement?
2. What has to happen before He can see that?
3. What does this passage therefore teach about salvation?

C. Comment:

      What was to happen was so important that the Bible repeats the details that we have already noted, so let’s observe the key details again so they may be firmly imprinted on our minds. First, a lamb had to die. Second, its blood was to be displayed at the entrances of their homes. Third, judgement was going to fall on the land and death would visit every home. Fourth, where the destroying angel saw that death had already come by a lamb dying, he would pass over the lives in that home. Fifth, where there was no lamb, judgement would fall.

      Thus we have perhaps the clearest picture in the Bible portraying what would happen when Jesus came. Jesus was God’s lamb (John 1:29 / Revelation 5:6). All who would believe in his death for them would escape the judgement of God (Romans 3:24,25). This is the wonder of salvation that God would provide His own lamb so that we might escape the coming judgement, be delivered out of the world of darkness ruled over by Satan and delivered into the kingdom of the Son (Colossians 1:13,14). What an amazing picture this is shown here in Exodus, fore shadowing that which God was planning to do centuries later.

D. Application?

1. Thank the Lord that is no doubt about the way of salvation.
2. Thank Him that we do not have to WORK our way into His acceptance, we simply have to BELIEVE it!

Passage: Exodus 12:31-51

31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.’

33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. ‘For otherwise,’ they said, ‘we will all die!’ 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favourably disposed towards the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.

40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt[l] was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honour the Lord for the generations to come.

43 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘These are the regulations for the Passover meal:

‘No foreigner may eat it. 44 Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him, 45 but a temporary resident or a hired worker may not eat it.

46 ‘It must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. 47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.

48 ‘A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it. 49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.’

50 All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.

A. Find Out:

1. When did Pharaoh summon Israel? v.31
2. How did the Egyptians want them to leave? v.33
3. What food did they have to put up with? v.34,39
4. What did they take with them? v.35,36
5. About how many men left Egypt? v.37
6. How long had they lived in Egypt? v.40

B. Think:

1. What was the state of Israel when they left Egypt?
2. What was the state of Egypt having resisted the Lord’s plan for His   people?
3. Read Genesis 15:13,14   How is this the fulfilment of prophecy?

C. Comment:

     At last it is all happening, it is real, we are actually leaving! What incredible joy there must have been among the Israelites as their long years of slavery were coming to an end at last. But it was all happening so fast they didn’t have time to think about it. It’s the middle of the night and then all Egypt is up and in distress!

     There is anguish in every home, and it suddenly dawns on them that it’s the presence of these Israelites that is the cause of the death of their loved ones, and they fear they will be next unless they can get them out of the country as quickly as possible. There is much haste and even bribery to get them to go. Israel are in a strong position and by the time they get moving they are encumbered by wealth, possessions and livestock. If it wasn’t such a devastating scene across Egypt it would be laughable.

      So it was that what had become a small nation of people, quite probably in excess of a million and a half people, left the land of their slavery to return home. God has moved and now they are free! They are off to a home they have never seen but which God has chosen for them.

D. Application?

1. When God declares His purposes, they WILL be accomplished.
2. God IS sovereign.